Jim Gray Led the Way

The Microsoft Jim Gray Systems Lab is a collaborative effort between Microsoft and the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that started in March 2008. Organizationally, the lab is part of the SQL Server Product Group and is currently managed by David DeWitt, a former Wisconsin faculty member. Before he died in a sailing accident in 2007, Jim was a long-time benefactor of the database group at Wisconsin and had mentored many of its faculty members and graduate students since the group was established in 1976.

A Unique Facility

Credit for the idea of establishing a facility that mixed UW-Madison graduate students with full-time Microsoft staff in a collaborative research setting belongs to Peter Spiro, a Microsoft Technical Fellow and 1985 UW-Madison graduate. Over the years that he managed the SQL Server product group, Peter had hired many UW graduates and felt that it was important for Microsoft to both broaden and deepen the connection between Microsoft and UW-Madison, and that a good way to do so was to establish this facility in Madison.

Motivation and Scope

The projects at the lab cover a range of different topics. Graduate student projects tend to be speculative. GSL staff projects are sometimes driven by a current business need but are more often initiated by the GSL staff in response to an important change in direction in the database field. Such projects go through a number of stages including design, prototype construction, and evaluation. Productizing the best ideas is a cross-team effort involving staff from other SQL Server groups and the Gray Systems Lab.